Rebecca Kling, rebecca.kling@sierraclub.org
Oklahoma City, OK -- This week, the Sierra Club filed three expert reports with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC), opposing an attempt by Oklahoma Gas and Electric (OG&E) to hike its customers’ electricity bills. Since 2015, OG&E has spent almost half a billion dollars upgrading the 38 year old Sooner coal plant, located approximately 90 miles north of Oklahoma City and 80 miles west of Tulsa. The utility is now trying to force those costs onto the people of Oklahoma. OG&E previously asked the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) for permission to raise its rates by tens of millions of dollars per year to recover costs at the Sooner plant. The request was denied. OG&E returned, asking for permission to move forward with the costly project anyway, but that request was ultimately rejected by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma. Now, OG&E is back at the Commission a third time seeking approval of this money-pit project at the Sooner coal plant.
In addition to this week’s expert testimony, public comments can be submitted to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission at https://sc.org/OGE-bailout through May 28, 2019. “I am responsible with my money and still struggle to pay my bills,” said OG&E customer Misty Cochran, in the public comment she submitted to the OCC. “Why should I and others like me be forced to spend more due to OG&E’s irresponsibilities?”
“By OG&E’s own estimates, they are seeking to raise rates on families by approximately 7% meaning people like you and me. OG&E will not stop until they have collected nearly half a billion dollars in the coming years, at an average of almost one thousand dollars per household,” said Johnson Bridgwater, Director of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Sierra Club, “and that’s assuming there are no unexpected costs of maintaining the Sooner coal plant. Over the next few decades, Oklahoma ratepayers could be on the hook for as much as a billion extra dollars in unnecessary cost to bail out OG&E and keep this coal-fired plant propped up. And members of the public agree in their comments: “OG&E should never have poured this money into the Sooner coal plant, and Oklahomans shouldn't be on the hook to pay for OG&E’s mistake.”
Other entities in Oklahoma, including the office of Attorney General Mike Hunter and AARP Oklahoma, are also opposing this rate increase.
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3.5 million members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.